One misstep, he said, may have been the company's decision to give Ford buyers multiple ways of controlling the increasingly complex electronics in their cars.

Some consumers, he said, prefer touch-screen controls. Some prefer voice activation, while others like controllers such as those used in consumer electronics and video games.

Ford built all three into its systems. But in doing so, it underestimated the progress that was coming in voice-activated commands, Mulally said.

When Ford started developing the system, he said: "We only had like 100 voice commands. Today we have 10,000 voice commands. In hindsight, we probably would've focused more on the voice activation and maybe a little bit less on the touch screen and then brought that technology along a little slower.